Rush Floats A Plan For County Hospital

March 30, 1990|By Charles Mount and Jean Latz Griffin.

Less than a week before the Chicago and Cook County Health Care Summit is to begin deliberations on a draft report that would restructure health care for the poor in Chicago, a private hospital has quietly floated its own plan to rebuild Cook County Hospital and develop a new structure of in-patient care.

Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke`s Medical Center has circulated a four-page report, obtained by the Tribune, that Rush officials say they have discussed with officials at the University of Illinois. But a spokesman for the university denies any knowledge of the report.

The plan would decentralize the services of Cook County Hospital, replace it with a smaller facility and build a nearby women`s and children`s hospital that would be jointly staffed by Rush and the University of Illinois Hospital.

But those who have developed the portion of the summit plan that deals with replacing Cook County Hospital say that while the Rush plan has merit, it also has some serious problems.

``The Rush plan is coming in at the 12th hour and is very sketchy,`` said Richard Krieg, acting Chicago health commissioner and co-chairman of the summit. ``It is very difficult to evaluate the concept. It tells us nothing about financing, for example.``

Krieg said he was also concerned about ``turning control of pediatrics and obstetrics, two specialties with large numbers of poor patients, to two institutions that have vacilated over the years in terms of their commitment to patient care of the poor.``

The summit plan, to be discussed for the first time on Monday, calls for a public hospital system reconfigured to put more services in poor communities while retaining specialized care at a smaller central Cook County Hospital.

The 800 to 1,000 public hospital beds that the summit has determined are needed in Cook County would include 300 to 500 beds at a new Cook County Hospital, 300 beds at Provident Medical Center, 212 beds at Bethany Hospital- to be purchased by Cook County-and 100 to 150 beds at the University of Illinois Hospital.

The summit has been charged with developing a plan to reopen Provident Hospital as a public facility.

In addition, contracts would be set up with private suburban hospitals for indigent pregnant women in the suburbs so they will not have to come all the way to County Hospital to deliver their babies.

Both Cook County and the University of Illinois hospitals would provide specialized and high-tech services, such as burn, trauma and high-risk delivery and nursery care. Provident and Bethany would take care of patients needing less specialized care.

If Bethany Hospital, 3435 W. Van Buren St., could not be purchased by Cook County, the summit report says, then a correspondingly larger central Cook County hospital should be built.

The Rush plan would include a smaller replacement Cook County Hospital than the summit plan envisions, plus a 416-bed women`s and children`s hospital. Rush and the University of Illinois Hospital would merge their pediatrics and obstetrical departments and jointly name the chairmen of those departments.

Provident would become a satellite hospital, as would a West Side hospital, Bethany or possibly the shuttered St. Anne`s, said Avery Miller, assistant to the president at Rush. Asked who would pay for all this, Miller said, ``That`s the next step.``

Cook County Board President George Dunne said that he hadn`t seen the Rush report.

``I have no objection to Rush and the university assuming some of the health services we provide if they want to pay for them,`` Dunne said.